


homeward rebound

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-07 04:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14073159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: Chewbacca leaves home, to go home.





	homeward rebound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spellboundreader316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellboundreader316/gifts).



It was a sad day when Chewbacca left, but at least this time it wasn't leaving the forests of Kashyyk that made him sad. This time, he wasn't leaving in chains, not knowing whether he'd ever see his home or his family again. Every day he had among the trees was a blessing, and he'd had years, decades of those blessings. He'd watched his cubs grow up and ranged around the forest with grandcubs clinging to his fur. He'd seen the wreckage of his home grow into something more beautiful than ever before. And this time when he left, he knew that Kashyyk would be there whenever he got to come back. No matter how long that took.

When he landed in a small outpost in the Outer Rim and hunted through the streets for the right slimy cantina, it felt like a very different kind of coming home.

Han Solo didn't drink all that often, at least not nearly as much as he liked to brag about. In all the years they'd worked together, Chewbacca could recall only a dozen or so times that he'd seen Han seriously drinking. When he did, though, the signs were impossible to miss. Chewie knew he'd found the right cantina as soon as he walked. There was no mistaking the voice bellowing from the bar that its owner had practically _invented_ the Hoth Maneuver, and how dare those Republic pilots claim credit for his battle strategies, and hey, where was the respect around here, didn't they know he was a General?

When Chewbacca walked up behind him, grabbed Han around the waist and threw him over his shoulder, he did with every bit as much love and tenderness as he did when he picked up his cubs.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Han bellowed. "Put me down!"

"I missed you too. Are you so drunk you don't even know who I am?"

"Of course I know who you are, fuzzball." Han thumped a fist weakly at his back. "Doesn't mean I want you manhandling me. Hey, Balto, are you seeing this? You're not going to do anything about people walking in and kidnapping your patrons?"

The bartender looked warily at Chewie. "I might, but when it's a Wookie..."

"I'm just here to take him off your hands." Chewie assured him.

After a few awkward moments, in which Han realised he wouldn't get any help unless he translated, Balto just shrugged and said "Yeah, okay. He makes more noise than he does money."

 

The doors of the Millennium Falcon opened for Chewie as easily as if he still walked through them every day.

"It's nice you never thought to change the locks," he said, depositing Han on the bench in the lounge.

"My mistake," Han growled back. "You want to tell me what you're doing on my ship?"

Chewbacca set a glass of water in front of him and sat down too, putting his feet up on the table.. "You want to tell me why I had to hear from your wife - soon-to-be-ex-wife, with the way you're going - that my godson has gone on a killing spree?"

Han's whole body stilled, every muscle tensed in hard, strained lines. Chewbacca thought he knew every expression Han could make, but he'd never seen one so terrible as the look Han was giving him right now.

"Get out."

"No."

"Get _out_."

Han was pushing at him, shoving and punching and doing anything he could to get Chewie to move, and he wasn't going anywhere.

"Why are you even here?" Han said, when it was clear he wasn't getting anywhere. "You're supposed to be retired and climbing trees with your sixty-five grandchildren."

"You're supposed to be a respectable member of society, but things don't always work out the way they're supposed to."

Han shifted away from Chewie again and drooped against the table, his head buried in his arms like he could hide from his friend, and from the world.

"How did this happen?" he said, his voice muffled. Chewie thought he should be asking that, given that all he had to go on was a rumour of murder at the Jedi academy and a distressed, fractured message from Leia. But that wasn't what Han was asking, not really. And there was no answer Chewbacca would give that was enough.

"I don't know," he said, and put his hand on Han's back. A moment ago he had been all tension; now he was trembling. Chewie just kept trying to make soothing growls until Han forced his head up again.

"It's just all done. I don't know what I can do. Ben killed another student and he's just... gone. Luke won't talk to me. Leia..." he trailed off and stared into space, seeing nothing.

It had been so long since Chewie remembered feeling like this, and it came to him only dimly. But the memories were still there. The initial fright of kidnapping, and then the manacles and brain-chips and terror that marked him a slave. The way he'd refused to cut the so many old and deep-knowing trees, how he'd been lashed until he could barely stand, and how even when he gave in, he wept for the ancient trees every time his knife bit into their flesh. He remembered slowly coming to believe that there would never be anything else.

He didn't know, then, that he would one day meet a man who would set him free, and take him to corners of the galaxy to see things Chewie had never dreamed of, not even before the Empire. His life had been terrible, and it had been wonderful, and he couldn't have one without the other. But it didn't make the awfulness less awful. If someone had come to him when he was chained up on the ship taking him away from his home, and told him that one day things would be okay, would he have believed it?

Was it true, really? Chewbacca had a wonderful life. He loved the family he had around him. He still mourned the family he'd lost, and always will. His life was better than he ever thought it could be, but that didn't mean everything was okay.

"It's a terrible thing your cub has done," he said, at last. "One day, you won't feel so terrible, but it will never change what he did."

Han sat for a moment, absorbing that. "I wish I could have done something different."

Chewie let out an exasperated roar. "You didn't put the blaster in his hand and pull the trigger. He decided to kill."

"Well, I think..."

"Nah, if you want to blame yourself you can shut the fuck up. Maybe you could have been a better dad, I don't know, but he chose to kill. Nobody else makes you do that."

He could see Han pulling himself together - with considerable effort - but at last there was something of himself when he looked Chewie in the eye and said "I was going to say, I think he used a lightsaber."

Chewie growled in mock irritation, and Han held his gaze, and for a moment he could almost smile. Then Han sagged, first in his face and then his shoulders, until he fell bonelessly against Chewbacca with a choked sob.

"Why'd you let me get into this?" Han gasped. "Why did you let me have a family? I always fuck these things up. I never had a family before this."

"Like I could stop you from doing anything." Chewie scratched at the back of his neck. "Besides, it made you happy."

Han didn't say much after that; he just hid his face in Chewie's shoulder and curled his hands in his fur, and held on. Comforting human was difficult when they didn't have much to groom, but Chewbacca did his best. He held Han to his chest and dragged his claws through Han's hair gently and rhythmically, the way he'd once done to soothe his own cubs to sleep.

"That's what I'm doing on your ship," he said, suddenly.

"What?"

"You said you never had a family before, but you did." Chewie gave him a gentle shake. "You asked what I'm doing on your ship, but that's why. I came for my family."

Han didn't look at him, didn't move at all. The fight was long gone out of him, and if he weren't so distressed, he'd probably be asleep. But Chewie felt hands tightening in his his fur, and he could hear Han whisper "I know."


End file.
